Poem of the Week

This week's poem is Things to Think by Robert Bly. I was at a conference the past few day, where I sat on a business committee that involved quite a bit of thinking outside the box. I've always loved being given the opportunity to exercise my creativity and I don't particularly like falling into any 'cookie cutter' mold. That's not to say that I feel a need to constantly oppose popular belief, but I would much prefer to come upon that opinion based on my own research and personal point of view. I think that we all could use a little experimentation with our thoughts now and again.  Enjoy!

Things to Think

Think in ways you’ve never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged: or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

-  H

Singing the Praises of Scarves

There's something supremely wonderful about a scarf. I'm not sure what it is - logically a full out sweater covers a much greater body surface area, but I don't think they are quite as exciting. Maybe its the fact that you are allowed more creative license with a scarf; nobody really expects your scarf to be in complete cohesiveness with your outfit, if it doesn't really match 'hey! It's a scarf!'. This is likely because deep down, in spite of fashion, we think of scarves as functional pieces meant for warmth. This is great because you can get away with outrageous prints and patterns that would seem blinding and wind you up on an episode of some makeover show, should you wear them on any other item of clothing such as a shirt or pants. Honestly, imagine this Burberry scarf as a men's button down...

Yikes!

There's also the fun aspect of being able to wear a scarf in a whole slew of different ways. Generally, there's only one way to wear a pair of pants - unless you turn them inside out... But with scarves you can go simple and casual or opt for intricate knots and twists to give some dramatic flair to your look and impress all your less expert scarf-tying friends. These are just a few examples:

Click here to learn how to make these awesome knots.

And of course there is the lovely handmade aspect. It takes a certain amount of skill and precision to knit something like a sweater, and not very many people know how to sew, but, with a few youtube tutorials and a trip to the craft store anyone can knit a scarf. It doesn't matter if the scarf is a bit lumpy or has some dropped stitches, (things which would make a knit sweater rather difficult to wear). In a scarf these little imperfection can often be quite endearing because they represent the effort and thoughtfulness it took the non-knitter to make you such a cozy gift. I am by no means a proficient knitter, yet I made a few as Christmas presents for loved ones. Sidebar: [The scarves were made with uber-plushy (yes, that is an adjective, who cares what the dictionary tells you) 'homespun' yarn that was heathered and veriegated and it was even called Ambrosia. Seriously it was divine, I was almost tempted to keep it for myself.]

I just realized that as I sit here typing away about scarves I am ironically bereft of one, and that is making me laugh so I feel like this is a good time to sign off. Maybe I will go grab a scarf, after all, it has been dreadfully cold today. 

Stay warm and DFTBA.

- H

P.S. While I may have challenges when it comes to putting yarn to needle, I have a friend you could knit a dragon if you asked nice enough. No, seriously, she has knit a plush dragon, he was orange and blue and adorable.

Derivative

Last year during an evening of samosas and discussion on various science topics with our math professor, a few of my friends and I put on a short skit. Said skit involved a purely fictional encounter between Sir Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Galileo Galilei and Blaise Pascal in which these four science giants argued over which of them held claim to the title of best scientist of the 17th century. I must preface this tale by telling you that we are four very nerdy people in an exceptionally nerdy programme, so for the entirety of our performance we were batting clever little science puns and nerd jokes, all the while trying not to dissolve into fits of giggles. But the pièce de résistance was a heated debate between myself as Newton and my friend S as Leibnez. If you were to meet S, she would likely be the last on your list to ever yell at someone - that's just her demeanor. She's a petite, quite book worm who is an out-and-out nice person. I'm a hot-head with a European background so I can get quite...vocal, but I'm also pretty shy in public so unless you're a close relative you'll probably never see the should-have-been-born-with-red-hair side of me. Needless to say it came as a great surprise to our classmates when we got all fired up about the long-standing debate over who invented calculus first (and is the overall better mathematician).

Since then, its been a running joke between us; often forgotten but laying just beneath the surface, ready to come to light when I text her a picture like this...

Figure 2: Newton is on top once again!

I'm not really sure why it is so amusing, but this little "argument" between two people who agree on almost every other topic we discuss never fails to make me smile. As such,  I stumbling across things like the XKCD comic at the beginning of the post always makes me ridiculously happy. 

I hope you come across something today that makes you laugh too.

- H

P.S. The Night of the Mathematical Skit has also resulted in a joke about my friend E and Galileo. She shudders at the sound of his name, excellent teasing material. ;)

Poem of the Week

This week's poem is Textbook Statistics by Arkaye Kierulf.  I am so in love with this poem, I'm not really sure that I have any words that do it justice.  What I can say with utter certainty is that it epitomizes the whole concept of my blog, the wondrous accidental poetry of life.  Enjoy!

Textbook Statistics

On average, 5 people are born every second and 1.78 die. 
So we’re ahead by 3.22, which is good, I think.

The average person will spend two weeks in his life
waiting for the traffic light to change.

Pubescent girls wait two to four years
for the tender lumps under their nipples to grow.

So the average adult has over 1,460 dreams a year,
laughs 15 times a day. Children, 385 more times.

So the average male adult mates 2,580 times with five different people
but falls in love only twice in his life—possibly

with the same person. Seventy-nine long years for each of us,
awakened to love in our twenties, so more or less

thirty years to love our two lovers each. And if, in a lifetime,
one walks a total of 13,640 miles by increments,

Where are you headed, traveler?
is a valid philosophical question to pose to a man, I think, along with

Why does the blood in your veins travel endlessly?
on account of those red cells flowing night and day

through the traffic of the blood vessels, which if laid out
in a straight line would be over 90,000 miles long.

The great Nile River in Egypt is 4,180 miles long.
The great circle of the earth’s equator is 24,903 miles.

Dividing this green earth among all of us
gives a hundred square feet of living space to each,

but our brains take only one square foot of it,
along with the 29 bones of the skull, so

if you look outside your window with your mind only,
why do you hear the housefly hum middle octave, key of F?

If you listen to the cat on the rug by the fire with
the 32 muscles in your ear, you will hear

100 different vocal sounds. Listen to the dog
wishing for your love: 10 different sounds.

If you think loneliness is beyond calculation,
think of the mole digging a tunnel underground

ninety-eight miles long to China
in one single night. If you think beauty escapes you

or your entire genealogical tree, consider the slug
with its four uneven noses, or the chameleon shifting colors

under an arbitrary light. Think of the deepest point
in the deepest ocean, the Marianas Trench in the Pacific,

do you think anyone’s sadness can be deeper? In 1681,
the last dodo bird died. In the 16th century,

Queen Elizabeth suffered from a fear of roses.
Anne Boleyn had six fingers. People fall in love

twice. The human heart beats 3 billion times — only — in a lifetime.
If you attempt to count all the stars in the galaxy, one

every second, it’ll take 3 thousand years, if you’re lucky.
As owls are the only birds that can see the color blue

the ocean is bluish, along with the sky and the eyes
of that boy who died alone by that little unnamed river

in your dreams one blue night of the war
of one of your lives. (Do you remember which one?)

Duration of World War 1: four years, 3 months, 14 days.
Duration of an equatorial sunset: 128 seconds, 142 tops.

A neuron’s impulse takes 1/1000 of a second,
a morning’s commute from Prospect Expressway

to the Brooklyn Bridge, about 90 minutes,
forty-five without traffic.

Time it takes for a flower to wilt after it’s cut from the stem: five days.
Time left our sun before it runs out of light: five billion years.

Hence the number of happy citizens under the red glow
of that sun: maybe 50% of us, 50% on good days, tops.

Number who are sad: maybe 70% on the good days—
especially on the good days. (The first emotion’s more intense, I think,

when caught up with the second.) So children grow faster in the summer,
their bright blue bodies expanding. The ocean, after all, is blue

which is why the sky now outside your window is bluish
expanding with the white of something beautiful, like clouds.

Fact: The world is a beautiful place—once in a while.
Another fact: We fall in love twice. Maybe more, if we’re lucky.

If only my stats course was so fantastic.

- H

Resolutions

I'm not six-years old any more, so unlike Calvin, I'm well aware that I have significant room for improvement; but then who doesn't. I think that's actually a wonderful thing, being able to self-evaluate and make adjustments to our attitudes and behaviours based on what stage we are at in our lives. Granted, critical self study isn't always the most comfortable activity, but it is quite illuminating and rewarding in the long run. I think that sometimes we get so used to ourselves that many aspects of our "self" go unnoticed. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone, but it does in my head at any rate. Please note that I'm trying to speculate rather than generalize, in case this comes across a little heavy handed. I just think that we tend to think, "this is me" without really taking the time to fully understand who me is, and when we stop to analyze that we can be surprised by what we find (at least that is the case for me). 

I notice beliefs and behaviours that I don't particularly agree with my self about anymore. I am (we all are) constantly growing, developing and progressing as a person, so it's only fair that I should reassess old habits and ideas, and adapt them to fit the new me. Other times I notice behaviours and beliefs that I particularly like but may not focus much attention on, and I decide that it is time to cultivate this opinions and acts.

So I am engaging in a bit of introspection and creating a list of 13 resolutions for 2013. While it may technically be 19 days late, I figure better that it's better than never...

My Resolutions for the New Year:

1. Get fit with more excercise
2. Learn a new language (at least the basics)
3. Dedicate more energy to my studies
4. Take the time to read again (at least 13 31 novels)
5. Initiate more conversations (be more sociable)
6. Post on this blog at least 3 times a week (unless out of internet range)
7. Work on managing my moods
8. Get a job
9. Become more organized
10. Complete at least 13 sewing projects
11. Be a better friend
12. Really talk to my family members everyday
13. Look for the silver-lining

So, those are my goals and I'm keeping to them!!! (Oh yes, that was three exclamation points to prove my dedication). What are your resolutions this year?

Love,

- H

P.S. I found this picture while googling (yes, it's a verb) for "resolution" images. Does anyone else find it creepily Matrix-like? *shudders*

Rethinking the Cold

I've never exactly been partial to cold weather.  Ironic really, considering I used to be a figure skater, but arenas are climate controlled. There is no wind, no snow or flurries in an arena, and the physical exertion from flying across the ice keeps you in this odd limbo state where you are simultaneously burning hot and lose-feeling-in-your-extremeties-cold. Maybe its the workout, maybe it is the joy from doing something I loved, but I didn't mind the skating rink cold - I reveled in it.

The outdoor, exposed to the elements type cold I could really do without. There's the blisteringly windy cold, where it feels like your skin is being attacked by little barbs. There's the special type of humid cold that seems to seep into your bones and even once you find refuge inside, you feel like ice is being pumped through your circulatory system. That horrible type of cold is only rivaled by the deceptive coldness of a clear sunny day, that lures you away from your warm coats, your mittens and your scarves, with the promise of a little morsel of spring weather. It's only after you've left your house and all opportunities to add on extra layers of clothing, that you notice that you're shivering and your mouth is so numb that your words are starting to slur. You realize that it's not just a tad nippy, but truly and utterly COLD! To top it all of the brightly shining sun and blue skies seem to mock your plight.

I must confess; I have been invariably ranting about the low temperature for a good month and a half now, which is why I was completely stunned yesterday to discover that I actually appreciated the winter weather.  For alas, there was one variety of cold that I had neglected to consider. Among all the rather unpleasant types, there is also the glorious snow-cold. Not the blizzarding cold that leaves you trapped in your house unable to open the front door, or causes accidents on the freeway, or knocks out the power and leaves you rummaging around for candles and canned goods. No, I'm talking about the 
winter-wonderland snow, where it looks like everything has been powdered with confectioner's sugar, gracefully coating each tree branch and ever rooftop. It's a magnificent sight to behold and you are momentarily lost in awe for the incredible world in which we live. When I woke up yesterday, that was the sight that greeted me, and for the first time this season I was actually grateful for the snow. Forgive me for the rather clichéd statement, but it reminded me to look for the silver lining in each unappealing circumstance we face. Even the bitter cold can be beautiful...



- H 

P.S. XKCD's guide to temperatures. So funny! Spit goes "clink". *laughs*

Scent of Books in the Air

I love bookstores. No that's not adequate. I absolutely, positively ADORE bookstores; always have, always will. Surrounding yourself with towering shelves of books of all colours, shapes and sizes. Slowly ambling down the aisles, picking out a title here, a cover image there; pausing to reminisce with old favourites and curiously investigating potential new reads. The stores call to you like an alluring siren's song, impossible to resist.

While trendy chain stores like Chapters/Indigo offer a wide and reliable selection, easily accessible locations and the convenience of online shopping, there is still something slightly sterile about them. Maybe it's the sheer size of the stores which tend to be rather large, maybe it is the addition of household goods and knicknacks meant to boost profits, or the presence of the overtly commercial Starbucks or even the upselling techniques of the staff. What that "something" is, it detracts from the books themselves and prevents a truly homey environment. That's why I really enjoy perusing used bookstores.

Used and independent bookstores are fantastic. Firstly, I'm a sucker for indie stores and establishments; they are so quaint and personable, you get talk to the owners one-on-one and experience their passion for what they do. When "what they do" is run a bookstore, you can talk excitedly about authors and stories with a fellow bookworm which is always a wonderful experience. Secondly, used bookstores always have that glorious "book-smell" to them, it fills the air like some heady perfume. Additionally, the books are generally stacked in teetering piles, and crammed onto shelves with narrow passageways - it's like a labyrinth of books. Then there is the fact that nearly all the books have been previously loved; you start thinking of all the people who have shared the same literary journey as you, how they came upon the book, their thoughts and feelings as they read it. I like that aspect, speculating about the previous readers, inventing back stories, trying to imagine whether they felt the same way as you as they read. Lastly, used/indie bookstores always have a delicious selection of classic works; thick unabridged tomes with gorgeous bindings, gold foiling and publishing dates well into the past. For a bookworm it's like finding buried treasure.

Stumbling upon one of these adorable little gems is certainly adds to the accidental poetry of life.

All best,

H

Poem of the Week

I have decided to post a poem each week that will relate to the theme of said week, or perhaps simply the state of my mood at the time. I wanted to have something 'constant' on my blog, because most of it will just be thoughts that pop in to my head at odd times, or commentary on events that occur in either my private life and the public sphere.  I thought that this could offer some stability while still remaining quite  flexible.

Without further ado, this week's poem is Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye. Since we are still in the first few days of the 2013 I think that it is appropriate. I think she does a fantastic job of capturing the phenomenon of time passing by. Enjoy!

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

- H

Entrance into the Blogosphere

Hello...

My name for all intents and purposes on the internet is H. (Very mysterious...)
I'm new to the blogging so please bear with me as I attempt to navigate all its complexities.

Madeleine L'Engle once wrote:

You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it? Yes. Mrs. Whatsit said. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

We are given the general form of life; we eat, we breath, we sleep, we exist from birth to death. But it is in how we fill our lives, how we enrich them, that the true poetry emerges.  This blog is an homage to the the love, the laughter, the loss, the beauty, the contrasting complexity and simplicity of life; everything that we stumble upon, everything that collected together creates the accidental poetry of life.

This is my poem. What is yours?

Love,

H